


swallow my breath and take what is mine

by demistories



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Green Gables Fables
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/M, GGF, Love Confessions, season two pump up party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 19:25:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4678469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demistories/pseuds/demistories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The five times Gilbert Blythe said "I love you"<br/> <br/><span class="small">(and the one time Anne Shirley said it)</span></p>
            </blockquote>





	swallow my breath and take what is mine

**Author's Note:**

> ***kicks down your door* WHO'S READY FOR SEASON TWO!!!**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> I decided that there's not enough Anne of Green Gables fanfiction. And certainly not enough Anne/Gilbert fanfiction. I decided to change that. At 2 am. 
> 
> Title from Wolves Without Teeth by Of Monsters and Men because why not

**i.**

They’ve been paired up for an english assignment. It’s dreadful and means she’s _supposed_ to be talking to him, but she’s far too stubborn for that.

Anne still hates him and he’s still awful and whenever he looks at her she has the strong urge to dye her hair raven black. Despite the absolutely horrid outcome of her first attempt at dyeing it.

Not to mention that the assignment is about poetry. Poetry! He just has to ruin everything good and beautiful in life.

So while he reads the first poem aloud, soft enough not to disturb the other partnerships, Anne flips to the next poem in the packet, skimming the text and wallowing in metaphors. She tunes out his voice as much as possible, ignoring the way rhymes slip from his tongue and similes color the world. She pours her energy into absorbing the next poem, taking in its written glory, breathing in the stardust it sings of and breathing out its painted sunset sky.

 _"I love you._ ”

Her gaze flies to Gilbert, but his eyes are still on the page. He’s not confessing to her, he’s reading a poem.

 _"I’ll whisper it into the night air_  
_But you’ll never hear._  
_I’ll sing it to the stars, to the galaxies,_  
_To the empty space between the planets.”_

It doesn’t explain why Anne’s heart leapt to her throat, why her pulse is racing, but she knows how to explain it.

 _"You carry the universe in your mind,_  
_I carry nothing by my heart in my hands._  
_It’s an unfair exchange, a meager organ for hundreds of worlds,_  
_A singular emotion for thousands of stories.”_

It’s really quite simple.

 _"I stand below, a mere mortal beside your greatness._ ”

Shock.

" _You will be immortalized in the stars_  
_In the sky_  
_In your eyes_  
_In my heart”_

Gilbert had raised his voice slightly at that line. The line. It had startled her. And when someone is startled, their heartbeat increases, sending more blood to various body parts. A simple adrenaline rush, the fight or flight response.

 _"Maybe next time I’ll say it louder,_  
_Not too loud,_  
_Just loud enough_  
_For the wind to catch the words_  
_And whisk them off._  
_And maybe_  
_Maybe that wind will carry them past your eyes.”_

He glances up at her, catching her eye with the last line. Anne rolls her eyes and looks back down at her paper. It’s all too easy to lose herself in the rhythm of the poems as her heartbeat steadies.

 

**ii.**

She’s not going to laugh. She’s not going to laugh.

Anne Shirley is very mature and serious and she is _not going to laugh._

It’s just very hard with Gilbert sitting in the lake, dripping wet. His hair in his eyes, and his clothes soaked through. Glaring at her as she stands on the bridge.

She covers her mouth with a hand. She’s trying very hard. Very hard.

A snort slips through.

At that point, all hope is lost and she lets herself laugh. Laugh, laugh, laugh, clutching her stomach and then looking at him and laughing again.

Gilbert gets to his feet and groans, dripping and pushing wet hair from his face. “I love you,” he deadpans. “I love you _so much_ right now.” The glare he gives her is made pathetic by the wet flop of his hair. “This is entirely your fault.”

When she figures out how to breathe properly again and his dripping has slowed considerably, she asks, “Are you okay?”

“I’m soaking wet,” Gilbert says, squeezing out the edge of his shirt.

“Uh yeah, standing in the lake still probably isn’t helping,” Anne points out.

He looks down, like he didn’t even realize it. Which, to be honest, he probably didn’t. “Right. Of course.”

She snorts again. “And you should probably get warm and dry clothes on before you catch hypothermia and die.”

Gilbert’s shoes squish as he steps out of the lake. “It’s far too warm for me to catch hypothermia. And this is not how you get pneumonia, if that’s what you’re going to say next.”

“Fine, Mr. Going-to-be-a-Doctor. Save yourself from a nasty cold.” Anne rests her arms on the bridge. “Unless you just want to drip there until the sun sets. Then it might get cold enough for you to get hypothermia.”

“It won’t be,” he promises.

“And you want to test that?”

It’s hours later, Gilbert is home and no longer covered in lake water, and Anne’s forty seven and a half pages away from the end of her book. And she’s still trying not to think about how much those words made her smile, even when he was standing knee-deep in a lake.

 

**iii.**

“Thanks, Mrs. Blythe,” Anne says as she knocks on Gilbert’s bedroom door.

A muffled, “Come in,” comes from the other side.

The lights are off and there’s a large pile of blankets on the bed. Colored sticky notes cover one of the walls, and textbooks balance precariously on the desk. As much as she wants to look around — you can learn a lot from the room people live in, the place they make their own — her plan was to just hand Mrs. Blythe Gilbert’s work and leave. She wasn’t expecting to be ussured towards Gilbert’s door with a promise that he’d be happy to see one of his friends, even one bearing stacks of homework.

There is one thing missing though.

“Uh… Gilbert?”

The blankets move slightly, and she sees a tuff of his hair. With another shuffle of blankets, the rest of his head appears out of his blanket cocoon. He stares at her for a long moment. “Anne?”

She smiles. “How are you feeling?”

“Awful.”

She sets her bag down next to her. “Kind of figured. I liked your various medicine tweets. I mean, it meant that something was happening during the most boring geometry lesson of all time.”

His only reply is, “I don’t like NyQuil.”

“I don’t know if anyone likes NyQuil,” Anne admits. “It’s absolutely disgusting and whenever I take it, I want to throw up.”

“There’s other medicine for that.” Even in the dim light, she can tell he looks awful. Sick awful, pale and sweaty with a slightly unfocused look in his eyes. “I don’t like that one either.”

“You’re not going to like me for this, then,” she says. “I brought your homework.”

“…Chemistry?”

“Yeah, thermochem.”

Gilbert slips back into his blanket cocoon and groans. “Noooo.”

“Sorry. At least you don’t have to do it tonight.” Anne puts the pile she’s been holding down on the desk, moving some of the books that she’s sure are going to topple off. “What’s school policy? You have two days for every day you missed to make up work?” She stops reorganizing his room when she doesn’t get a response. “Gilbert?”

When he says nothing, she walks over to the bed and tugs on the blankets.

“Please don’t say you suffocated in there.”

“I didn’t,” he says after a second.

“What are you even doing?” She tugs on the blanket until he reappears.

“Netflix.” Gilbert pulls his laptop out from the tangle of blankets.

“All these blankets and your laptop in there?” Anne asks. “Isn’t it hot?” And stuffy and uncomfortable?

“I’m freezing,” he says. “Usually. Sometimes it’s too hot, but usually it’s cold.”

“Yeah, well, that’d be the fever.” She presses the back of her hand to his forehead. “You’re burning up,” she murmurs. “Whatever you took for that has probably worn off by now.”

“No more medicine,” he protests. “I really don’t want anything that claims to be any type of fruit flavor or bubblegum, because it’s a _lie_.”

“It’s disgusting so little kids don’t drink it all. That’s what would happen if it actually tasted like bubblegum.” Anne doesn’t know if that’s true, but that’s what she’s always figured and learned from years of taking care of sick kids. She moves her hand from his forehead, and his hair sticks up from where she pushed it up. She smooths it down, asking, “Do you know when you last took medicine?”

“Breakfast?”

She glances at the clock. “You can have more now, and you probably should. It’ll make you feel better.”  
  
“Yeah, right,” he grumbles.

“What? You don’t want to be back in chemistry as soon as possible learning about entropy and enthalpy and complaining about how thermochem is so different from thermodynamics?” She laughs at the look he gives her. “Figured. Can’t trust you to get medicine, I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Et tu, Brute?” he mutters as she makes her way to the door.

As Mrs. Blythe is pulling out medicine bottles, it occurs to Anne that this is a little weird. So much for just dropping off Gilbert’s homework and getting home to sneak a few chapters of her book before Marilla has chores for her and she has to start homework. But at the same time, she’s not feeling a lot of urgency to leave.

“Here,” she says, handing Gilbert a few pills and a glass of water. “And your mom says that you should be drinking more water than just the glass with the medicine.”

“No NyQuil?” he asks, pulling his arms from under the blankets.

“Not unless you want to be out cold at two in the afternoon.” She takes the glass back once he’s taken the pills and puts it on the bedside table.

“It’s only two?” Gilbert asks. He sighs and sinks lower into the blankets. “Doesn’t feel like it.”

“You don’t seem like the type of person to enjoy sick days,” she says.

He shrugs. “Too much to get done.”

  
“Of course,” Anne says seriously.

“No, like… Missing one day is bad enough.” He motions to his desk and the pile of assignments. “Look at everything I have to do. Think of how much I’ll have to do if I miss tomorrow too. And while you’re trying to make up your work, they’re still going and you have twice as much to do and it’s so easy to just slip behind and… There’s too much to do to have sick days.”

For some reason she wants to take his hand or pat his arm or make some sort of physical contact, which is ridiculous and she ignores it. Tries to.

“If you need help catching up,” she says after a minute, “I can try to help you.”

Gilbert looks at her with hopeful eyes. “Really?”

“Sure.” She checks the time again. “I should probably go, Marilla will be wondering where I am.”

He ducks back into his blankets. “Okay.”

She sweeps up her backpack as she walks towards the door. “Feel better, Gil.”

From the blankets comes a soft and slightly muffled, “I love you.”

Her hand freezes on the doorknob. She takes a few quick breaths. “That’ll be the fever speaking,” she says cheerfully. “Make sure you drink more water.”

Anne leaves in a rush, saying goodbye to Mrs. Blythe and nearly running home. She shuts the door to her room behind her and rests her forehead on it.

She would’ve been perfectly happy staying there and taking care of Gilbert. Her heart had lurched when he said it. The back of her hand still burns from his hot skin. What if’s dance through her mind.

It’s terrifying.

 

**iv.**

“A much needed study break,” Gilbert agrees, swiping a finger through the icing.

Anne bats his hand away. “Hey! Out of the bowl.”

He bops her on the nose with his icing covered finger.

She knows the effect of her glare is lost with the icing on her nose. “How dare you, Gilbert Blythe.”

Gilbert sticks his finger in his mouth. “At least we know it’s not poisoned now.”

Anne rolls her eyes. “ _I_ could’ve told you that.”

“And the sugar is sugar and not salt.”

“My baking skills are _fantastic_ , thank you very much!”

He laughs and grabs a cookie to ice. “Okay, yes, you’ve improved immensely from what I’ve heard.”

“Do not speak of it,” she says. She spreads icing over a cookie with a single sweep of the knife. “If you want cookies, you will not speak of it.”

Gilbert whistles. “Those are some stakes. Guess I won’t risk it. It’s not like I can just—” He grabs the plate of cookies and holds it high above her head.

Anne crosses her arms. It’s not even worth reaching for it, she’ll never reach them and they both know it. “That’s incredibly rude.”

“Nah, it’s not rude, you’re just short.”

“Excuse me?”

Gilbert just smiles and sets the plate back down. “You’re short. It’s a fact.”

“I’m not short. You’re tall.”

“Yeah, no, you’re just short.”

Anne scoffs. “I’m going back to the couch.” She grabs the plate. “And I’m taking these with me.”

He meets her on the couch with the bowl of icing. “You aren’t allowed to judge me if I’m not allowed to tease you about your baking,” he says.

She pushes the books on the coffee table over so he can put it down. “I assume you have a method. Is it dipping the cookies in icing?”

“So what if it is?”

“That’s a lot of sugar.”

“I’m a teenage boy,” he says, “I need the energy.”

“To sit on my couch and read books,” she finishes.

Gilbert shrugs. “If that’s what I do, so be it.” He takes a cookie and leans back against the couch.

Anne decides that she likes how their arms are pressed together. It’s a strange thing to like, but it’s a nice feeling.

“I love you,” he says through a mouthful of cookie. “I love you and take back everything bad I’ve ever said about your baking abilities.”

She just smiles and takes a cookie herself. “Of course you do. Because I am a great baker.” She really hopes he can’t hear her heartbeat.

Gilbert pulls on her hair. “One of the best I know. Top three, at least.”

Anne narrows her eyes. “Not number one? And you dare eat my cookies?”

“That’d have to be my dad, sorry, I don’t make the rules.”

“Sure you don’t.” She takes a bite of the cookie.

He rests his elbow on the back of the couch, and it’d be so easy for him to just put his arm around her shoulder. It’d be just as easy for her to take his hand and pull his arm around her shoulder. It’s a lot harder to not do that.

Anne leans forward and grabs her history book before leaning back, and slightly away from Gilbert, but she’s hoping he doesn’t notice that. “Have you read the chapter yet or do I have to read it all?”

“That depends,” he says, reaching for a notebook. “Did you finish the english yet? Because I know for a fact that my analyses aren’t good enough.”

“That’s because you speak science.” She flips through the book. “And of course.”

“I speak English, thank you very much.”

“Science English,” she corrects. “Have more imagination, Gil. That’s what your analyses are lacking, you have to become the characters, you have to be in the story, you can’t just be an outside observer, that makes it like, ten times harder.”

Gilbert puts a hand to his chest. “I have plenty of imagination. Besides, why do I need any more when I have you?”

She rolls her eyes, but she hides a smile and the butterflies that have made her stomach their home flutter.

 

**v.**

He catches her hand before she can walk away. “Anne, wait.”

She shut her eyes tightly. This was coming, she had seen this coming. She had tried to stop this from happening, so why was it? “Gil…” She hadn’t wanted him to feel this way.

“I didn’t even say anything.” His hand is on her shoulder. “Anne, please.”

“Gil, don’t.” She opens her eyes and shakes her head. Her heart is trying to run away. It feels like it’s falling to pieces at the same time. “Just–”

“Hear me out?”

Anne doesn’t know if she’d ever be able to say no if he keeps looking at her like that. If she’s going to be a coward about this, she might as well go all the way. She looks away. “Please don’t.” She can feel the slight pressure in the back of her head telling her that tears are coming, and it’s ridiculous. Because she doesn’t want things to change. Because she doesn’t want to lose him. And it’d be so easy just to say yes.

 _Things have already changed. Say yes_ , a small part of her says.

“I can’t.”

It hurts to say. The words are thorns, tearing up her insides.

“Can you at least hear me out before you say no?” There’s desperation in his voice. She doesn’t want it there. His thumb rubs circles on her shoulder.

She turns to face him, dislodging his hand. She can’t have this conversation while he’s doing that. “Gilbert, you don’t really… You only think you…” It’s too hard to say out loud. It hurts to think it. “It’s just because all of our friends have been saying it.”

“It’s not,” he promises. “It’s not because of them.”

She blinks away the tears that are clouding her vision. It’s worse, seeing him clearly. She wishes that her mind was clearer than her vision. She wants to be able to think her way through this, shove her emotions in a ditch, and not be able to see the hurt look on his face.

His smile is soft, his eyes look pained. She knows this hurts him just as much, which just isn’t fair. She doesn’t want to hurt him. No one should be hurting.

“Anne, I’ve loved you ever since you broke your lockerboard over my head in the hallway.”

She turns the phrase over in her head. Over and over again. He can admit it in words, aloud for others to hear. And she hasn’t even allowed herself to consider the possibility.

“Can you believe me?” His hand is on her arm now. “I love you.”

There they are again. She takes a deep breath — she hates how it trembles — and shakes her head. She can’t meet his eyes anymore. She doesn’t know if she’s ever going to be able to meet his eyes again. “No you don’t.”

“Yes I do.” He says it with so much conviction that she almost believes him. Only almost. “I love you, let me show you that I love you.” His hand slides down to hers. “Please.”

All that she can think is that she can’t lose him. That whatever she is feeling is saying that she can’t lose him. And even if he is feeling what he thinks he is, if this goes wrong… It doesn’t seem to be worth the risk.

“Please, let me show you.”

She looks up at him, and he’s far closer than he was before, than he ever has been before. She never considered it a possibility before, but he’s close enough that she might have to. He’s said it four times and she still doesn’t know how to answer.

“I…”

Their noses are nearly touching. Half of her is screaming to pull away and run in the other direction. The other is telling her to close the distance between them. The only thing she can do is stay frozen in this spot, try not to be dragged either way. His hand in hers is strangely grounding. Being just a breath away from him isn’t so bad. It’s not that scary. She doesn’t know why she didn’t want to be this close before.

_Just say yes._

“Anne?”

Two words. It’s not even three. It’s not admitting it, it’s considering the possibility. No confession, just accepting the option. It can’t hurt to try. (It can. It can hurt to try. It could go wrong, or it could go wrong later, and one could get hurt or both. It could hurt very much to—) It’s worth trying.

It’s amazing how much weight can be lifted with two words. It just lifts from her chest when she says them. It can barely be considered speaking, it’s the softest whisper she can manage, nothing more than another breath.

_"Show me.”_

Anne had a lot of ideas about her first kiss. She’s a romantic, she’s read enough books and poems. She’s fallen in love with words thousands of times, she’s read the most wonderful first kisses in the human imagination. Of course she had a lot of ideas. That it was going to dreamy and romantic, and just like Mia wanted in the Princess Diaries, her foot was going to pop. She’d look beautiful, and the person she’d be kissing would be just as breathtaking. Maybe the moon and stars would be out, maybe the clouds would be just right. It was going to be perfect. It was going to be the perfect first kiss, the perfect fairy tale kiss.

Shaking hands and tear-stained cheeks weren’t in her imagination. They aren’t perfect. Maybe that’s why it all feels so real.

Gilbert’s free hand comes up to cup her cheek, his thumb wiping away her tears. He only has to lean forward the slightest bit to touch their lips together.

It’s gentle, it’s soft.

She closes her eyes and relaxes into it, because it doesn’t feel wrong. Her free hand finds his hand on her cheek, falling to rest on Gilbert’s wrist. Whatever she’d been expecting to feel, the terrifying thought of that unknown feeling, she isn’t feeling it. Kissing Gilbert feels good, right. And as gentle as it is, she can feel him trying to convince her of how he feels through it. Anne thinks that maybe she started believing him before he kissed her. She finds herself smiling a little into the kiss.

When Gilbert pulls away, leaning his forehead on hers, it feels like it’s too soon. Breathing can wait. But when Anne opens her eyes, Gilbert is the one looking down, nervous and unsure.

“Do you believe me?” he asks again. His voice is soft and breathy. And Anne decides that of all Gilbert’s voices, this might be her favorite.

She’s always had words. Through everything, she’s had words and stories and poetry. They’re good for her and she’s good at them. She’s always been able to express everything she feels through words. Even when it seemed impossible, like someone had put a cork in her creativity, she somehow found a way, and wove her feelings into lines of poetry and her emotions into wild tales.

But she’s never had a real alternative to them before.

She kisses him again, harder this time.

_Of course I do._

 

**+i.**

Gilbert points to another star. He tells her which constellation it belongs to, the galaxy it’s in, it’s story.

It’s the perfect night for stargazing. A clear sky, a bright moon, a gentle breeze rustling the grass. It was after midnight when she called him, saying that they needed a break from homework. They had the rest of the weekend to do it, and the sky looks just stunning. They had laid out a blanket on the top of the hill, laid down, and stared at the sky.

Anne knows the mythology behind all the constellations. She loves knowing that people thousands and thousands of years ago looked up at the same sky she did, and found stories written in the stars. Found their stories within the stars.

Gilbert is talking about something he must’ve read in a science article, one with words that she doesn’t completely understand, but he’ll explain for her with a wide smile and gesturing hands as she sits on his bed and he spins in his desk chair. The article will probably be in her inbox in the morning, she’ll read through it, look up a few words, and then find him a short story or poem to send back. They’ll have an actual discussion about that. As for the science article, she’ll ask some questions, but mostly she’ll just let him talk and enjoy the way his eyes light up.

She loves the way his eyes light up.

She loves the way his hand feels in hers. She loves when he gestures wildly. She loves when he starts rambling. She loves the way his eyebrows furrow when he’s confused, how he hugs, how he smiles. She loves when he runs his fingers through his hair and when he’s up at the same late hour she is. She loves how he goes along with her wild plans and listens to her just talk. She loves how he sends her articles that he finds interesting. She loves that he puts sticky-notes up on his wall and never seems to clean off his desk, no matter how many books are piled on it. She loves how he kisses the top of her head, even if it’s to tease her about her height. She loves when he jokingly calls her carrot. She loves laying with him at almost one in the morning and stargazing. She loves his laugh and his smile and his eyes and—

She loves him.

It wasn’t like Anne had plan for how she was going to say it. She knew well enough that it would just feel natural and right when the time came. She certainly wasn’t hoping for any situation that was too dramatic, no near death confessions or any of that. She hoped that he’d know long before either of them were expecting to die.

Yes, laying there under the night sky with him and contemplating the universe, it feels right.

Anne props herself up on her elbow.

Gilbert stops talking and sits up on his arms. “What is it?”

“I love you.” The words roll off her tongue, and now she knows why he said it four times. She wants to say it again and again and paint it in the stars.

She’s never seen him smile so brightly. “I love you too,” he says and kisses her lips and then her nose.

Anne lays back down, taking his hand in hers and resting her head by his shoulder. She points to a random star. “Do you know anything about that star?”

Gilbert whispers words about the stars into her hair, and Anne wouldn’t care if he had no idea what he was talking about. All that matters is that they’re together, she loves him, and he loves her. She could watch this night sky forever.

She realizes that all the poets got this wrong, because no metaphor or symbolism show how real and wonderful this love actually feels.

**Author's Note:**

> *cups hands* NERDS
> 
> Illness reducing characters to actual children is my weakness. Accurate? Not entirely. Fun? Absolutely. ~~If ii. and iii. are related no one has to know~~
> 
> The poem in i. is actually one I wrote (also at two am). It can be found [here](http://theunwrittentales.tumblr.com/post/127827892552/ive-never-been-able-to-properly-capture-the-night). And I have a [tumblr](http://wearetheseven.tumblr.com) if you want to say hi!


End file.
